Top of the Class

Teams in Chennai and Bhubaneswar competed with top-notch presentations at the summit.

Post a stellar show in Vadodara and Indore, Manufacturing Today brought the Aditya Birla Group presents Reinventing the Future summit to Chennai and Bhubaneswar. In its fourth year now, the summit has grown by leap and bounds, as was visible with the level and quality of presentations put forth in these two cities.
The theme for this year’s competition was ‘Great Teams at Work’. As always, teams from leading manufacturing companies competed on a single platform across six broad topics: Cost Optimisation, Quality, Technology, Safety, Sustainability and People Initiatives.

Chennai
The event saw 17 teams give case study presentations throughout the day, across all six categories. The keynote address was delivered by K Sendhil Naathan, president, unit head, Tanfac Industries, Aditya Birla Group. During his speech, Naathan stated, “Manufacturing is the most important part of economic growth. Any country that has achieved good economic growth could not have done so without a strong manufacturing base. In fact, any global trade that takes place is mainly based on goods, not services. According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), around 80% of global trade is around merchandise or products. Hence, manufacturing takes a front seat. Above all, the manufacturing sector creates a lot of jobs, both directly and indirectly.”
The jury consisted of Ratan Shah, group talent mentor, Aditya Birla Group; K Sendhil Naathan, president, unit head, Tanfac Industries; K Kumaravel, joint president & unit head, Hindalco Industries, Belagavi Works; K Suresh, president, Grasim Industries, Harihar; and Manish Kulkarni, director, BDB India.
Schneider Electric, who were adjudged regional winners from Chennai, gave a presentation on Cost Optimisation. The team highlighted how they had brought about industrial productivity enhancement through a lean approach, resulting in cost savings of Rs 4 crore.
On the other hand, Ashok Leyland, who won for Sustainability, detailed the optimisation of power consumption through the introduction of a heat pump at Ennore. The team had conducted an in depth analysis of various power consuming elements and narrowed down the causes as overrated motors and fixed loads. Electrical heaters in washing machines were replaced with a heat pump system, which works on the principle of taking ambient heat from the atmosphere and using it for heating water. Through this project, energy consumption was reduced from 595 KWHr/HECU to 528 KWHr/HECU.

Bhubaneswar
A total of 15 teams presented their case study, in the aforementioned six categories. Kiran Patil, COO & executive president, Rawan Cement Works, Aditya Birla Group, delivered the keynote address. Patil said, “Any business needs to have a strong vision and mission to sustain itself, and the Aditya Birla Group aims to be a premium global conglomerate. The Aditya Birla Group believes strongly that if we have to sustain ourselves, we have to take care of our customer. The customer is king; he is the boss; hence we call the customer, the ‘bosstomer’.”
In addition, there was a panel discussion with a focus on Odisha and Eastern India. Panellists included Arun Misra, VP (project Gopalpur) and MD (Tata Steel Special Economic Zone), Tata Steel; VK Sinha, joint president, strategy, excellence & sustainability, Paradeep Phosphates; Dr Sangram Mudali, director, NIST, Bhubaneswar; AS Prasad, VP (Technical) & Head, Paradeep Complex, Essar Steel India; Aditya Dash, director, Ram’s Assorted Cold Storage; Pancham P Taank, GM, team leader, planning service workshop, SMS Group. The discussion was moderated by BS Pani, director (Asia-Pacific), International Committee for Studies in Bauxite, Alumina and Aluminium (ICSOBA): Quebec: Canada.
Kiran Patil, COO & executive president, Rawan Cement Works; Vivek Bhide, unit head, Grasim Industries, Rehla; Prasanna Panda, senior president, unit head office, Essel Mining Industries; and Manish Kulkarni, director, BDB India, made up the jury.
Jindal Stainless, Jajpur, were announced regional winners from Bhubaneswar. They were applauded for their presentation on Technology, regarding their renovation of an ammonia distillation column for its qualitative enhancement of efficiency. An innovation modification of design of the top part of an ammonia distillation column was implemented by the team, so the distillation now takes place more efficiently and the extracted ammonia is diverted in the De-Sulphurisation (DS) section, resulting in the reduction of H2S impurity in the Coke Oven Gas.
The Aditya Birla Group is not just a premier manufacturing company, but also engages in many such initiatives to help manufacturing professionals partake in knowledge-sharing and, in turn, grow.

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